When it comes to observing various cultural and ethnic customs and feast days throughout the year, Our Lady of the Angels Parish, Trenton, is at the forefront.

Hardly a month goes by that the parish does not have some type of traditional celebration planned. Just log on to the parish website, www.olatrenton05.org, click on the calendar or browse the bulletin or newsletter links, and see.

The month of October highlighted Columbus Day and this year, it was a weekend filled with festivities which included the arrival of a delegation of more than 90 people from Monteleone di Spoleto, Italy. Among the entourage of guests were Benedictine Father Cassian Folsom, founding prior of the Monasterio di San Benedetto (Monastery of St. Benedict), Norcia, in the Umbria region of Italy; two other priests, Father Camillo and Father Angelo, and members of the Corpo Bandistico “Carlo Innocenzi.” Click here for a photo gallery from the event

Father Cassian, who is a familiar face around Our Lady of the Angels Parish and a former seminary professor of Father Jeffrey E. Lee, pastor of Our Lady of the Angels Parish, was principal celebrant and homilist of a Mass in Italian and English Oct. 11 in St. Joachim Church.

The following day, Oct. 12, which was Columbus Day, the parish hosted the ninth annual Trenton Columbus Day celebration which was co-sponsored by the Ocean County Columbus Day Parade Committee, by members of the New Jersey Italian and Italian American Heritage Commission and Our Lady of the Angels Parish. A trilingual Mass was offered in English, Spanish and Italian in Immaculate Conception Church, at which Father Lee was principal celebrant and homilist.

Following the Mass, the congregation was invited to step out onto the plaza on the grounds of Immaculate Conception Church to enjoy a performance by Arlecchino, a folklore group of singers and dancers from Bergamo, Italy.

Giving some background on the Columbus Day tradition in Trenton, Father Lee said that in the Chambersburg section of the city, where both St. Joachim and Immaculate Conception Churches are located, it began as an annual event in the late 1880s by Franciscan Father Pietro Jacchetti, who was at the time the pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish and the one who oversaw the construction of the church located on Chestnut Ave., Trenton.

“So it is fitting that the church takes the lead in promoting some observance to keep this tradition in the forefront of civic consciousness as many municipalities are removing this day as a public holiday,” said Father Lee. “The observance of Columbus Day is an opportunity to remind one another of the greatness of our country and the hopefulness that characterizes the Catholic spiritual identity as well as America as the “great experiment.”

On a parish level, however, Edwin Sevillano, parish pastoral associate, said that Columbus Day celebrations began as an annual tradition in 2001 in St. Joachim Parish, which was the Italian and Italian American national parish. The day would begin with a Mass followed by a musical/dance presentation by an invited group from a particular region in Italy. It’s a tradition that has continued to carry on even after St. Joachim and Immaculate Conception Parishes were merged in 2005 and became Our Lady of the Angels Parish.

Sevillano reviewed some of the other annual cultural and traditional events that the newly merged parish community has come to look forward to throughout the year. There is the feast of Our Lady of the Angels, parish patroness, in August, which “continues a long standing, beloved tradition of Marian processions” of more than 100 years.

The parish also honors the Blessed Mother as the patron of several regions in Italy (Madonna di Castelucio di Norcia, Madonna Assunta from Casandrino); as well as observes the feasts of St. Rita of Cascia with the blessing of roses each May 22; the feast of St. Anthony of Padua with the blessing of bread on June 13, and the feasts of Sts. Joachim and Anne, parents of the Blessed Mother and grandparents of Jesus, with a triduum and Mass each July.

Though Our Lady of the Angels Parish continues to serve a significant Italian American community, Sevillano said, the parish has also incorporated some new traditions that recent arrivals from the Hispanic community brought to the parish. In addition to celebrating two Masses each Sunday in Spanish, the parish has also established a celebration for the feast of St. Louis, King of France, patron saint of Salcaja, Quetzaltenango in Guatemala.

Last year, the parish welcomed Archbishop Oscar Julio Vian-Morales from the Archdiocese of Los Altos: Quetzaltenango-Totnicapan to preside at the Guatemalan feast day Mass.

By honoring the various cultures, said Father Lee, provides an opportunity for the parish to exhibit the tradition and expanding diversity within this parish.

“It is a sign of the vibrancy that exists and of the tremendous desire of parishioners to be a welcoming community as our neighborhood community becomes increasingly more ethnically and culturally diverse and much more of an immigrant community than it has been for perhaps 80 years or so.”

“The merging of Immaculate Conception and St. Joachim has formed a new and vibrant reality in Our Lady of the Angels Parish,” said Father Lee. “We are becoming a community that is grounded in our past: German, Irish, Slovak, Italian, Franciscan, Maestre Pie Filippini, while opening our prayer, worship, facilities and community to new immigrants from Central and South America, the Caribbean and beyond.”

“The presence of the Latino community continues to ground us in our heritage and to strive for ways to honor that tradition and ways to build new bridges of understanding and communication with those communities from which many of our ancestors emigrated,” said Father Lee. “As we broaden our mission, each of us is being challenged to re-discover that which is so very important to us and that’s our own heritage.”